Meriel's loving welcome at Avonleigh had been balm to her bruised and aching spirit. Sometimes she felt as if she had never been away, but those moments were few and far between. Avonleigh had not changed, but Meriel had.
In the past months she had learned much about fear and courage, about passion and anger, about the dark and mysterious depths of the human soul. She had lost more than one kind of innocence, and come to realize how sheltered her previous life had been.
Day and night she was haunted by images: Guy of Burgoigne lying butchered in his own blood, her husband standing over him as wild and savage as a bird of prey. Adrian of Warfield as her implacable and frightening captor. And infinitely worse, images of Adrian as her tender lover. No matter how hard she tried, Meriel was unable to reconcile the different aspects of her husband.
His obsession with her must have waned for he'd made no attempt to prevent her leaving Chastain. He'd merely watched wearily, as if she were an unwanted guest departing. At the time Meriel was intensely grateful for his disinterest, for she'd been desperate to escape the terror and slaughter of Chastain.
Indeed, she'd been near hysteria when she begged Alan to take her away immediately. If Adrian had refused to let her leave, she might have broken down entirely.
But after she had recovered from shock, she knew that her flight had been a mistake. For better and worse, Lord Adrian was her husband, and that was a fact that she could not ignore. Another fact that could certainly not be ignored was the child growing inside her. Soon she must inform the earl that he would have an heir.
After that, what would happen? She had no idea, did not even know what she wished for.
Meriel realized that she had been staring at one rosebush for quite some time, doing nothing. Resolutely suppressing the queasiness that had been with her since waking, she moved to the next bush and set to work. She'd almost finished her pruning when Alan came from the house, a frown on his face. Concerned, she asked, "Is there trouble?"
"Not precisely trouble," her brother said slowly. "A message just arrived from Warfield. I suppose he sent it to me, since I am in effect your protector."
Very carefully Meriel sat down her shears. She had a feeling that whatever the message's contents, they would not make her happy. "What does Lord Adrian say?"
"The gist is that since you wed him without true consent, the marriage can be annulled, Warfield will pay for all the legal costs and petitions. I suppose that includes any bribes that might be necessary," Alan added as a cynical aside.
"Also, for your future maintenance and as a dower should you choose to marry again, he will settle on you several manors worth a total of six knight's fees. He will return all of your personal possessions, including clothing, jewels, Chanson, and"—he glanced at the parchment—"a kestrel that he says misses you."
Alan offered her the letter so that she could read it for herself, adding, ''Warfield is amazingly generous."
Lord Adrian had even thought of Kestrel. Yes, his obsession had ended. Meriel stared at the parchment, not reading it. Of course he would be generous, it was one of the traits that defined a nobleman.
The faint queasiness she had been feeling abruptly became full-fledged nausea. Meriel swayed dizzily, then turned, dropped to her knees, and began retching under a rosebush. Even her body was betraying her.
Alan knelt beside her, and when there was nothing left in her stomach, he lifted her in his arms, deposited her on a nearby bench, and wiped her mouth with the corner of her apron. "Would you like something to drink?" he asked.
"Water, please," she said thickly.
He left and returned a few minutes later with a goblet of water, which she drank greedily. When she had emptied it, Meriel leaned against her brother, her mind a gray blank.
"I think we had better talk," Alan said, putting his arm around her. "Are you with child?"
"I'm certain of it."
"Warfield will have to know."
"Of course," she agreed, her voice leaden.
"I don't suppose he will want to go through with the annulment under the circumstances." Alan paused, then asked quietly. "Will you?"
Therein lay the problem. Meriel leaned forward and buried her face in her hands. "I just don't know," she said wretchedly. "I haven't told you this, but gradually I have come to remember what happened in the weeks between the accident and the return of my memory. And, Alan, I loved Adrian then. I thought the sun rose and set on him, and he was so kind, so gentle."
"Do you love him still?"
"Again, I don't know. I remember how he imprisoned me, and how vicious he was when he fought Burgoigne." She shuddered. "That was not honest combat, but butchery, and Burgoigne's blood flows between me and the happy memories. How can I live with a man capable of such brutality?"
"Yes, he was brutal," Alan said slowly, "though as a knight myself I understand why. There is a wildness that comes over a man who is fighting for his life. In that state men are capable of great bravery, and great wickedness." He shrugged. "Warfield took a little longer to kill Burgoigne than he might have, but the provocation was great. If someone had murdered my family and abducted my wife, I would have behaved no better, and possibly a great deal worse."
"You admire him, don't you?" Meriel lifted her face from her hands but continued to stare into her lap, where her frantic fingers intertwined. On her left hand was the gold wedding band. She had started to remove it a dozen times, but something had always stopped her.
"I do," he admitted, "for sharing danger forges a bond. But more than that, I like him. He is honorable, he behaved with great restraint when I was doing my best to provoke him, and he is possibly the bravest man I have ever known." Alan's voice softened. "Warfield also loves you as I have never seen a man love a woman. While his original behavior was unconscionable, he has done everything possible to atone. If you have any fondness for him, you could not ask for a better husband."
"He does not love me," Meriel said, wondering if her words were true, or if she even wanted them to be. "When we first met he swore that he would never let me go, but he has. I was a brief madness to him. Now he has recovered and wishes to be free of me. The marriage is over."
"It is over if you want it to be," her brother agreed.
Meriel bent over and picked a daisy that grew below the bench and absently began plucking the petals one by one. I love him, I love him not.
"I think," she said as white petals drifted soundlessly to the grass, "I must go to Warfield and talk to Lord Adrian." He loves me, he loves me not. She crushed the ruined flower in her palm.
"I agree," Alan said. "When do you want to go?"
Having made the decision, Meriel knew instantly that it was right. Meeting Adrian again was the only way to free herself of her tormenting confusion. "Now?" she said hopefully, slanting a glance up at her brother. "This morning?"
"I'll order the horses." Alan stood and went to the stables, his heart considerably lighter. Meriel might not know what she wanted, but he thought that he did.
* * *
During their journey, Meriel varied between terror and anticipation. It was a distinct anticlimax to arrive at Warfield to find that Lord Adrian had gone out riding alone. No one knew where he had gone, or when he would be back, but likely it would be late.
Meriel gnawed her lower lip at the news. The idea of waiting for hours more was intolerable. Her morning fatigue had vanished and now she brimmed with energy in spite of the long ride. But how to find Adrian on the vast Warfield lands?
An absurd idea struck her. Alan trailing behind, she went to the mews and swept inside.
"Lady Meriel!" the falconer said with delight when she greeted him. "It's good you're back, my lady, Chanson has been missing you, and so has the earl. Some folk have been saying you left him and that his lordship is going to become a monk, but I never believed that for a minute. My lady has just gone to visit her brother, I said."
A monk! Shocked, Meriel stared at the falconer, knowing that it was
quite possible that Adrian might do such a thing. Is that why he wished to dissolve the marriage?
Masking her reaction, she pulled on a leather gauntlet. "I wish to take Chanson out now, I've been neglecting her."
It was a delight to have the falcon on her wrist again, and she and Chanson spent several minutes exchanging nonsense greetings. When they were outside again, Alan asked, "Care to explain what you're up to, little sister?"
She grinned. "Perhaps Chanson can find Lord Adrian for me."
"For heaven's sake, Meriel," her brother expostulated, a smile tugging at his lips, "he's not a hare or a partridge."
"It can't hurt to try. I'll go mad if I must wait here for hours." Meriel swung onto a fresh horse, Rosalia the First having earned a rest. "You don't have to come if you are tired."
Alan snorted and remounted his own horse. "Haven't you been cured of riding alone yet? Look at what happened the last two times you did it."
Meriel decided not to dignify his remark with an answer. They rode out of the castle until they were in the middle of the broad water meadow. Then she took off the falcon's hood and stroked the bird's throat. "Find him for me, Chanson."
As she spoke, she concentrated on a mental image of Adrian as she preferred to think of him: his beautifully molded face, the warmth that came into his eyes when he looked at her, the way light played on his gilt hair.
For a moment the picture came so alive that she forgot why she'd created it. She gave herself a mental shake and tossed Chanson into the wind. On powerful beating wings, the falcon arrowed into the sky. Holding to the thought of Adrian, Meriel tilted her head back and watched Chanson ascend. Find him.
Soon the bird was no more than a black speck high in the sky. Meriel told herself this was a foolish idea that would never succeed. Even if Chanson understood, the falcon could only see Adrian if he was in the open. But the activity was harmless, exercised the bird, and distracted Meriel from her fretting.
Nonetheless, Meriel prayed for a small miracle. When the falcon began to fly south, she followed.
After they'd ridden two or three miles, Chanson stooped, knifing from the sky toward the top of a hill, then winging upward to wait on again. When they came to the foot of the hill, Meriel's mouth curved in recognition. Of course. Perhaps fate bound them to this place.
As she dismounted, she offered inner thanks for having received her miracle. Then she produced the lure and called the falcon down from the sky.
After Chanson had returned, eaten, and been made much of for her cleverness, Meriel hooded the bird and gave it to her brother. "There is an ancient stone circle at the top of the hill and Adrian is there. You can return to Warfield now. I will see you there later."
"Meriel," Alan said warningly, "will you never learn?"
"I won't come back alone," she promised. "I have done with running away. Even if Adrian wants to wring my neck like a barnyard fowl, he will chivalrously insist on escorting me back to where he can do it in safety."
"You're in love with him, aren't you?"
She thought of her husband's complex nature, the bright strands woven with the dark, and shivered. "Perhaps I love one aspect of him, Alan. I don't know if that is enough."
"I'll ride up behind you. When and if you see Warfield, signal and I will leave, but not before then."
Meriel nodded agreement, then started up the path. The last time she had traversed this trail, she had been leading Adrian's horse through a violent storm, terrified out of her wits at having woken up in her enemy's embrace. Now the summer sun beat hot on her shoulders, and she was going voluntarily to the man who had been both enemy and lover.
Wryly she thought that over the last several months she had been trapped in the midst of a jongleur's tale, her emotions pushed to exhausting highs and lows as she suffered from other people's whims. It was time and past time to take control over her own life. Surely when she saw Adrian, her doubts and confusion would resolve and she would know what was right.
Her horse's hooves were muffled by thick leaf mold and Adrian did not hear her approach. He sat on one of several stool-sized rocks on the far side of the stone circle, his gaze focused on nothing, his fingers absently plaiting strands of grass.
Meriel turned and waved to Alan, who nodded and turned back down the track. Now her fate was in her hands alone.
She took a moment to study her husband without being observed herself. It was hard to believe that this quiet man was the same one whom she had last seen mercilessly butchering his enemy. Now he was once again the ascetic, the man who might have been a scholar or monk, his expression remote and otherworldly beneath his bright hair. Yet his dark, restrained dress only emphasized the lithe fitness of his body. If he were a monk, it would be of a warrior order.
She swallowed hard, then signaled her horse forward into the clearing. It was time to determine her future.
* * *
To Adrian, the stone circle was a symbol for all that had happened between him and the woman who had been his wife. Coercion and companionship, passion and estrangement, and he'd come here to try to make his peace with the past. Everything he saw reminded him of Meriel. The rough stones that had fascinated her, the tree under which they had made love, even the falcon that briefly swooped from the sky.
He heard the sound of hooves. When he turned his head, he knew that he would find no peace today. Meriel was riding directly toward him, slim and lovely and grave, and the sight of her was more frightening than any sword Adrian had ever faced.
God only knew what showed in his face in the first unguarded moments. Why did Meriel have to come to him when it meant that once again he would have to watch her leave? It was too much to ask of any man.
But he had released her once. Somehow he would—must—find the strength to release her again.
Clamping rigidly down on his emotions, Adrian stood and walked toward her. "Good day, Meriel."
"Good day," she replied. Such flat, meaningless words. Her deep blue eyes met his, and in their depths Adrian saw nothing. Not joy, not fear, not grief. Nothing.
A little helplessly, Adrian wondered what came next. If they were strangers, it would have been easy to speak of casual things, but there was so much between them that it might be impossible to speak at all.
From the speed with which Meriel slid from her horse, it was obvious that she did not want her husband to touch her. She was wise, but it was a hurtful wisdom, one more pain he must conceal.
She tethered her mount under the tree by Adrian's horse, then turned to face him. "Your message arrived at Avonleigh this morning. It seemed time for us to talk face to face."
"What I suggested was not satisfactory?" Though he would have given everything he possessed to take her in his arms, he forced himself to stop six feet away from her. "I cannot relinquish any of my inheritance from my father, but I can assign you more of the lands that I have acquired myself."
"That isn't necessary, my lord. Your offer was very generous." Meriel's restless gaze shifted away from him and fixed on her gold wedding band.
Strange that she still wore his ring. Perhaps she had come to return it. She asked, "Do you really think it will be possible to have the marriage annulled?"
Adrian nodded. "The Church maintains that there is no marriage without the full consent of both parties. Therefore, since you wed while in a condition where you could not give true consent, you are not bound by the vows. An annulment will take some time, perhaps a year or two if it must go all the way to Rome, but I do not doubt that it will be granted."
After a long pause, he added in a voice of absolute neutrality, "Then you will be free to marry again. Or as the Church will consider it, for the first time."
He could not have been less expressive if he were a stone wall. Hard to believe that this was the man with whom Meriel had lived such high drama. Did he really not care what happened to their marriage? Or did he care too much? Uncertainly she said, "You will also be free to marry elsewhere."
 
; Her husband shook his head. "You did not give true consent when we married, but I did. I made my vows with full knowledge, and in my heart they will always bind me. I will never take another wife."
His quiet, passionless sincerity was devastating. Meriel swallowed hard, wondering what lay beneath his words. "Will you become a monk?"
"I have considered the idea," he admitted, "but Abbot William convinced me that I have insufficient vocation. I shall merely... go on living."
Somewhere beneath his surface calm was the inner fire of the real man, and Meriel must touch that fire if she was to truly understand her husband. Needing to establish some kind of connection between them, she stepped forward and laid a tentative hand on his forearm.
Hawk-swift, Adrian jerked his arm from her clasp and spun away, not halting until he was a dozen steps away. "It is not wise to do that, ma petite," he said, his steady voice belied by his desperate eyes. "I am trying my best to control myself, but I cannot vouch for the consequences if you touch me."
Now Adrian blazed with the fire Meriel had sought, and Meriel knew that he still cared for her, perhaps too much. With dismay she wondered if she possessed the courage to really know him, the strength to endure his intense, demanding love.
Unable to answer her own questions, Meriel turned to another subject that must be spoken of, a subject that should please her husband and take the desolation from his eyes. Baldly she announced, "I am with child."
Adrian became absolutely still. Then, to her shock, he asked, "Is it mine?"
Meriel stared at him, aghast. "What kind of woman do you think me?" she exclaimed. "Whose child would it be but my husband's?"
"I'm sorry. I did not mean that as you think." He made a spasmodic movement toward her, then halted. "It is just that... when I first spoke with Burgoigne about ransoming you, he boasted what a passionate mistress you were."
Seeing her revulsion, Adrian lifted one hand. Composure was a thing of the past. Now pain was written vividly across his face. "I know you would never have lain with him voluntarily, but a child can be born of rape as well as love."